Digital photography makes it possible for people to take hundreds, even thousands, of digital photographs, without the time and expense of developing negatives and prints from film. However, organizing and viewing a large volume of digital photographs has become a challenge. This creates a problem in terms of arranging the photographs in layouts.
Existing software applications (also referred to herein as “routines”) exist which allow professionals and enthusiastic amateurs to create complex layouts with customized backgrounds, boarders, user-specified photograph orientation and size, and user-specified photograph selections. However, such complex layout routines present a bewildering array of options to the uninitiated user. Alternatives exist, such as IPHOTO® by Apple, Inc., which allows “albums” (groups of photographs specified by users) to be presented in “slideshows” or “Photo Journals.” To create a “Photo Journal” in IPHOTO®, the user selects photographs and one of six layouts. The photographs are arranged in a grid within the selected layout; the user can move, enlarge, edit, or remove photographs from the selected layout; the order of the photographs will be changed, without user interaction, if the user resizes a photo or manually changes the order of photos in the layout.
While a step toward addressing the need for software which arranges photographs in layouts, the existing products still require significant user interaction to prepare the layout, the user must select the layout template, and the selected layout repeats without variation as the number of selected photographs exceeds the number of positions in the selected template.
Needed is a system which addresses the shortcomings discussed above.